Brian Graham

I don’t belong

Feeling like we don’t belong is not an uncommon experience.  We look around at our family and think “Who are these people?”  We look at where we live and what we do, and get a feeling of disassociation.  We wonder how we got here.  You are not alone. The story arc While there are lots […]

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The greatest poverty

What is the greatest poverty?  Is it lack of money?  Is it substandard housing?  My thought is that the greatest poverty is lack of imagination. Imagination=Poverty If you have traveled this world, even our country, you know there are many people living at economic levels that would suggest poverty, yet they are happy.  Clearly then,

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Everything changed

December 7, 1972 everything about living on planet Earth changed.  On that day 48 years ago, astronauts aboard Apollo 17 took an image that has become one of the most reproduced images in human history.  Known as The Blue Marble this image, for the first time in human history reminded us of two things.  The

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Demonizing others

The most powerful thing about demonizing others is that we create a scapegoat for our own fears.  The most disempowering thing about having a scapegoat is we no longer have to face our own shortcomings. Learning to improve ourselves With a scapegoat, or someone to blame for what makes us uncomfortable, we by-pass an essential

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Gratitude meets indebtedness

We can feel a sense of gratitude to someone or something, but it does not necessarily have to become indebtedness.  What creates mandatory indebtedness is guilt. Guilt free gratitude You may be grateful to your High School coach who gave you the opportunity to see what you have inside yourself.  The Bank Officer who helped

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Peaceful, not calm

Is there a difference between being peaceful and being calm?  It may be a fine point, but yes, there is a difference. Being calm Life is messy.  Life is challenging.  Life calls us to respond to all manner of input on less than a moment’s notice.  Is it any wonder that often our lives cannot

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Putting it all together

Life is like a picture puzzle.  We have a bunch of pieces in front of us, but no picture of what the whole puzzle should look like.  Piece by piece we assemble the pieces we have until they are all in place.  This is a cause for celebration!  We finally have it all together. Then

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Thanksgiving and Passover

Twenty-four hours to Thanksgiving 2018.    Being a Gentile, the similarities of Thanksgiving and  the Jewish celebration of Passover had not occurred to me before today.  As I researched the similarities I was reminded that there is very little in our experience that does not have a precedent. Linking the celebrations Of course Thanksgiving is

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Worry, worry, worry

We worry, oh yes we do!  What will others think, what will others do, what will I do, what if this doesn’t work!  One the things we as humans do best is to worry.  Some people actually define their lives by how much worry they do.  If they do not do enough, they feel they

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